The “Transforming Construction” budget of £170 million has been approved and the R&D competition is expected in July 2018.

The programme will focus on:

How we manufacture buildings

How we design them

How we power them

… With a view to improve productivity.

Construction is a very competitive industry. 80+% of its costs is procurement, operational and financial risks in case of project delays are significant. Modest financial capacity is dedicated to R&D.

Yet unlike other highly competitive industries such as the automotive sector, it has modestly strived to standardize construction projects into products that are repeatable, with standard designs, standard procurement requirements, standard bills of material. Surely, we do not want too much uniformity in the residential market and in our city centres. But when it comes to functional public buildings financed by the tax payers such as hospitals, schools, or prisons, there is great merit in a more productized approach.